n the first Uncharted Waters game, it was the 15th century and the New World was discovered. Now in New Horizons, it is the early 16th century and the age of exploration and sea trade is underway. Players choose from any one of six adventurers (scenarios), each with their own distinctive but intertwining plot, to embark on a quest of sailing, seamanship and exploration.
When little kids say "I want to be an astronaut", "I want to be a firefighter!" and so on, no doubt that at least one of them will say "I wanna be a pirate!".
Uncharted waters is truly an original game. You start as a small trader/adventurer/privateer, discover distant lands and get rich. The game gives you relative freedom as you can start as an english privateer, a cartographer from Holland, a prince adventurer from Portugal, a noble lady from Spain seeking revenge, a Turkish trader or a member of bankrupt family that is desperately trying to get out of debt. Basically you have three ways to go, as you could have guessed already: pirate, trader or adventurer.
Allthough careers say what you should focus on, they don't prevent you from doing other things too. It's just that if you do something else than, for example, explore distant lands as adventurer, you won't achieve fame. Fame is simply achieved by doing what your career is about.
When you pack your things and get on the boat accompanied by your trusty first mate it's all up to you. You can either trade in the mediterranean or sail to distant lands like America, Africa, or far east, but it's not as easy as it sounds. You must buy food for the crew, face storms or pirates. There is a church which you can go to in the game, but it's doubtful that it is good for anything. However, I suppose donating money and praying will keep storms away from you.
As you might have guessed already, exploration is the main focus of game. Adventurers get paid to explore, but it's essential for privateers as well. The more distant the lands are, the weaker escorts for ships are. (Imagine chinese fighting off spanish fregate...) The more you explore, the more exotic goods you can sell for hefty profit to europeans, and it also prevents the game from becoming too dry. A good idea made by developers is a chart you can acess any time to get to know where you are.
Your mates will be important. You need a good navigator to be able to sail to port before you will be sinked by a storm, you need good a book keeper so that you know what are the most profitable places for trading and, naturally, a good first mate.
Enough of mechanics, how good is the game? I'd say it's very good and it doesn't get repetetive. Probably the only bad thing is the prize adventurers have to pay for their discoveries. It's bad to run out of money at cape of good hope, just to sail all the way back to europe to get money from your supporter so you have enough to buy food... of course they can only sell and buy goods, but that may seem simply too boring for some (like me).
Uncharted Waters is the most un-KOEI game ever made by KOEI, perhaps because it is the only series not designed by Kou Shibusawa, the prolific founder of KOEI. Based on the high-seas adventure period in 17th century Europe, you are an honest merchant trying to amass fortune while coping with pirates and fickle mayors. In Uncharted Waters 2 you can choose to play as one of the characters, each with different goals and purposes. This makes the game highly replayable and adds refreshing RPG and adventure elements to the strategic game. If you love Sid Meier's classic Pirates! but want something a little different, this is the game for you.
This is basically a trading game in the 16th century, and a good one! The game is quite extended and has many options in it. There are a lot of ports in the game and in most of those you can trade anything from gold to glass beads. You can equip your fleet with different kinds of hulls and cannons and attack other fleets. The game map is very big and you can explore the coasts of every continent (even Antarctica!). There are villages where you can find special wonders like ayers rock or the Niagara falls.
The only 2 bad things about the game are the music, and the storyline. Well, actually the storyline is ok, but it gets irritating if you just want to play the game without it. You can choose the role of one of six adventurers. The adventurers represent the six most important world powers at that time: Spain, Holland, Turkey and Italy. Each of them has a different storyline and different quests to be completed. So, if you're tired of playing with one character, you can start over with another one.
Skills you and your crew can have include Gunnery, Mapmaking, celestial navigation, accounting and negotiation. By adventuring your experience and fame increase. When you've got enough fame the king of your country gives you a special job and a new title when you complete it. The system looks a lot like the one used in Pirates but is a lot more extended. You should really get this game if you like trading- as well as war games. Just remember to turn the sound off.
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
People who downloaded Uncharted Waters 2 have also downloaded:
Uncharted Waters 1, P.T.O. II, Romance of the three Kingdoms 3, Liberty or Death, Gengkhis Khan 2, MechCommander 2, Vikings: Fields of Conquest, Walls of Rome
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